Page 30 of Phobia
“You didn’t,” I murmured, failing to contain the approval from my voice.
“You’d do the same, wouldn’t you? Regardless of their last name?” he asked, his timber calm. “If it was your wife.” I stiffened at the mere mention of Katrina, my nostrils flaring with warning to select his next words carefully. “If you could kill what harmed her… wouldn’t you?”
I lowered my arm holding the knife, my thumb playing along the dull spine.
Katrina’s observation from earlier whirred in my head.“They’re together, aren’t they?”
“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” My stare skated upward, snagging on the painting above me in her likeness. “Josephine Fischer. You’re in love with her?”
“Love.” He laughed through his nose.
Right. Love wasn’t the right word for what people like him and I experienced.
It was deadlier than that.
Obsession.
The pieces of the puzzle came together. “Vince in on this?”
He sneered at the mention of my brother’s name. “Markov is proving to be useful, yes.”
I was going to need a lot more than that.Vince didn’t help anyone for free.
Rhys sighed. “Don’t look at me like you’re a saint, Ryan. You’ve got a track record that precedes you.”
“And?”
Rhys gave me what I thought was his version of a smile. Or a simper. I couldn’t be sure. “And,you would understand better than anyone, just like Markov does. The law doesn’t favor the likes of us. We don’t look the part.”
“You’ve got a squeaky-clean record,” I informed him.
He regarded me through shrewd eyes, smiling. “And I intend to keep it that way with his help when I’m done.”
I stared at the figures again; the words registering in my head. “The crematorium.” So what the fuck did Vince want in exchange?
“For my tunnel access, yes.”
I cursed inwardly. The tunnels.
There were a series of underpasses that ran beneath Rockchapel, hundreds of years old. The Founding Fathers had ordered their design in the event trouble happened upon them.
No one knew why or what they were running from, but I didn’t think it was just the Witch Trials.
The town had ordered them to be sealed off fifty years ago.
Save for one, apparently.
“Why?” I questioned.
What the fuck could Vince possibly want with his access?
“I didn’t care to ask.”
“Do you normally invest all your trust in people you don’t like?” Vince wasn’t someone you trusted, not like that. He was as dependable as a king cobra.
“We’re taking a chance on one another. Romantic, isn’t it?”
He stepped closer to Increase, staring into the faces of his work. He closed a hand around his jaw, sneering down at him. “Don’t cause me anymore trouble or I’m coming for your tongue next,” he warned.
